when the kia stinger set the auto show season on fire last year everyone said
well that is an unlikely vehicle from Kia it is a performance sedan or
performance hatchback we should probably say with as much as 365 horsepower
rear-wheel drive or all-wheel drive there's no question it has a really
good-looking pedigree finally today I got a chance to find out both on the
street and in some clothes courses whether or not the performance lives up
to the specs the styling and the hype I started out driving the stinger GT
specifically the highest trim level the GT - one of the first things I figured
out is it's very easy to drive fast it's reasonably quiet it's composed I
consistently have coming up on either speed limit signs or turns faster than I
realized I was going and I need to slow down as for its actual speed with this
twin turbocharged 3.3 liter v6 engine and 356 horsepower it is quicker
actually we now know that it originally was advertised as being the estimate
that came out earlier was 0 to 60 and 5.1 seconds the engineers went back to
the drawing board and they tweaked and they changed camshaft profiles and they
say a hundred different little changes and now we have this zero to 60 in
acclaimed 4.7 seconds
it doesn't feel extraordinarily fast off the line
it's not the turbo lag you used to experience in cars that is pretty much
gone thankfully but it's a little bit slower getting off the line this happens
to be the all-wheel-drive version of the car so certainly no torque would be
wasted I wish they put a little bit more power into it off the line but once you
get going nice mid-range punch it's a pretty impressive engine the
transmission as well an 8-speed conventional torque converter automatic
transmission there is no manual it shifts reasonably quickly it's
responsive to the pedal it is also responsive to the paddles which are
standard the paddles increase the ship speed by about 10% they say now this is
not as quick as a lot of the dual clutch automatic transmissions out there but it
is certainly not a problem there are different modes the difference between
comfort and sport is not that great at least as it regards the aggressiveness
of the shifting pattern of the transmission or even on the street even
before I put it on any kind of close course I felt like it could use a more
aggressive sport mode maybe a sport and a sport plus when you're at high speeds
like this and you go from comfort to sport it'll just take one gear off it'll
go from 8th to 7 and at lower speeds it might take two years off but it's not a
super aggressive shift program which I mean in a car like this the way it's
engineered it could support I wouldn't mind having a real aggressive one that
down shifts through the gears more noticeably as you're decelerating
the stinger has advertised handles very nicely it has a great deal of composure
partly because of that long wheelbase gives you real nice ride quality for one
thing but also good deal of stability the weight distribution is good leans a
little bit more toward push understeer in corners but that's the safe way to go
it feels pretty similar between the rear-wheel drive and all-wheel drive
versions if you're lucky enough to find yourself in a Canyon Road like this you
just find that it just digs in and keeps on going throttles reasonably responsive
keep it especially if you keep it in the right gear and the steering is a high
point good feedback good torque build-up as you move away from Center and there
is actually a quite a big noticeable difference in the setting between
comfort and sport in the amount of steering assist and the feedback than in
the changes in the transmission response and the adaptive suspension in this car
fortunately this car is equipped with Michelin Pilot Sport for summer tires
super grippy they're taken everything I can throw at them and they want more
it's not to say there's anything wrong with a rear wheel drive version but the
all-wheel drive is even more unflappable it has rear bias so it feels like a
rear-wheel drive car but it can throw up to about 50 percent of the torque to the
front when needed and it actually varies based on the mode when the car is in
sport mode it sends only up to 20 percent of the torque to the front
wheels and I found on the autocross and the road course that this really gave
the car more consistent feel reactive all-wheel drive systems that shift too
much torque can really change the character of the car abruptly I don't
know if sport mode would make lap times faster but it definitely makes the car
feel more consistent I was fortunate to get some time on the
street in the base stinger the nan GT it has a 2 liter four-cylinder with a twin
scroll turbo charger and where the GT has 365 horsepower this one has 255 even
though it is less powerful it has decent power I was pretty impressed with it
it's ok off the line sounds a little bit fuzzier as you might expect the
transmission continues to work really nicely it responds quickly doesn't bog
down it's quick with the paddles as well Kia says the zero to 60 time in this
version of the car is 5.9 seconds very very respectable
this car has regular shock absorbers it doesn't have the adaptive suspension and
it's tuned pretty nicely again I think the long wheelbase really pays off here
now here's something that really surprised me the brakes in the base
stinger feel pretty good now in the stinger GT you get Brembo brand 4 piston
front 2 piston rear calipers performance brakes and they did prove today to be
very fade resistant as for the pedal feel decent linearity decent not top of
class or anything like that and now we're in a car with one piston calipers
at all four corners they are not branded they're just plain old brakes and they
feel really good they don't actually feel much different in terms of the
strength they give me just as much confidence for stopping power as the
others did sometimes it's not about the formula it's about what you experience
and that's what I experienced after a day of driving different versions of the
Stinger I have no question that it's a performer but I do think it might be a
car for a certain type of person like me it doesn't care what the badges because
the performance is all there now if you're an image weenie who has to have a
Porsche badge or an Audi badge or some other better-known luxury or performance
brand then I'm sure they'll take your money but if you are just looking for
the performance it's definitely here you
you